“I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.” 

Let’s begin on August 16th. I am from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and my oldest brother is in the US Navy so we flew out to Great Lakes, Illinois to visit for a few days. As we are leaving Illinois to get back to PA so I could catch my 6:40am flight back to Chicago where I had a lay-over for an hour before flying back to Colorado, we decided to get to the Chicago airport around 7:00am to spend time with my brother before receiving his orders and him flying out at 7:30pm. Our flight to Pennsylvania was set for 12:50pm. Well, after delaying it for four hours they finally told us that it was cancelled because they didn’t have a crew. How do you have a flight set up months in advance and not prepare a crew to work that flight? 

We go to customer service and our two options were to spend one more night in Chicago and in the morning my family goes to Pennsylvania in the morning, and I stay in Chicago since I have a lay-over there in the morning. That did not work because everything I was bringing back to college was at my Pennsylvania home and was too much to ship. Plus, they could not guarantee me a flight to Denver until that morning. Option two was that we catch the 7:00pm flight into State College (two hours away from my home instead of flying into where we live) and arrive around 11:00pm (Two hour flight, one hour time difference) then have someone pick us up to drive two hours home. 

We booked the 7:00pm flight. This time, we were delayed an hour because there was no airplane. After spending thirteen hours in this airport we get on the smallest plane I have ever seen. We arrive at State College to find that our luggage is missing. At first we were told that it was still in Chicago. Then we found out that it had been sent to the Harrisburg airport that we were supposed to fly into originally. We had the employee call them and tell them to hold it because we were on our way. 

So, after a two hour drive home and at around 2:00am we arrive at the Harrisburg airport. I couldn’t find anyone working so I talked to a police officer that showed me where my luggage was. I could see it. The only things stopping me were that the door was locked and the officer pointed out to me that they all went home because the last flight took off at 11:00pm and would not be back in until 4:30am. Remember, I had a flight back to Chicago at 6:40am and I still had to repack. My only option was to go home and put all of my things in a plastic bag and take it to the airport at 4:30am to repack in the middle of the airport. – Which I did. 

After I repacked on the floor of the airport I found out that my flight to Chicago is delayed by an hour. Thus making me miss my connecting flight to Denver. Once again I had to rebook my flight and spend several hours in the Chicago airport.  As I am boarding the plane to Denver I think “Finally, something is going right”. I was wrong. We get on the plane and find out we are delayed an hour. At this point I wanted to walk off the plane. An hour passes and we take off. I arrive at Denver International airport still having about an hour and a half drive home. 

I finally arrived in Fort Collins around dinner time and after the longest two days of my life. I was greeted by the warm hugs and smiling faces of my sisters who by just that made me forget about how stressed out I was about my experience. I can relax and say home sweet home. And words from the wise. Never fly United.